


Four Feet Under

by jordanhennessy



Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Murder, Vomiting, canon-typical bitchiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:06:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jordanhennessy/pseuds/jordanhennessy
Summary: Jordan and Hennessy bury a body.
Relationships: Hennessy & Jordan (Raven Cycle)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Four Feet Under

No matter how many times she did it, Jordan thought she would never get over the strangeness of burying someone with the exact same face as you. 

Jay didn't look like them anymore though, had already started to bloat by the time Jordan had been alerted to her death— Hennessy standing in her doorway, like a child telling a parent they'd thrown up— and gone to fish her out of the pool. It was better than when they'd dealt with Alba's body, but not by much. The memory made her want to gag. This time around she'd known to smear Vicks Vaporub under her nose to help with the nausea.

Hennessy was supposed to be helping her, but after helping her wrap her in her sheets and dragging her outside, she was opting to crouch next to the grave while chain smoking. Jordan wiped sweat from her brow, dropped her shovel, and plucked the cigarette from her fingers to put into her own mouth. Hennessy pulled out another and put it between her lips. Her hands shook as she attempted to light it.

"Are you calling it a day? Leaving our girl in a shallow grave?" The hole was only waist deep.

"You could help." Hennessy laughed, smoke pouring out her nose. She stood up using Jordan's shoulder to steady herself, teetering in her platforms, and she toed Jay's body into the hole. Jordan grimaced at the wet thump, and when she glanced in, she saw that the sheet had slipped to show her sodden hair. She grabbed for the fifth of vodka Hennessy was holding, and Hennessy handed it to her after taking another swig. Jordan took a mouthful and screwed up her face, shaking her head back and forth.

"God, that's awful."

"Baby." Jordan didn't deny it.

"It feels wrong to be burying her face-down, doesn't it?"

"It's how they used to bury criminals. It feels very fitting to me."

"Facing the way they're headed, I suppose?"

"Exactly, my friend."

She reached up to wipe under her eye and for a split second, Jordan thought that she might be wiping away a tear. Then her fingertips came away black. Jordan's mouth tasted like bile. 

"So soon?"

"We should go ahead and all pile in there with her. Dig one big grave for our big, happy family." Jordan imagined it for a moment, the day when someone discovered a pit full of genetically identical corpses.

"We'll figure something out." Hennessy shrugged one shoulder.

"Suit yourself. Might as well get our family bigger and happier before we all go into the ground together." 

"You know I hate it when you're maudlin."

"I am a printer running out of ink. I have earned maudlin." Jordan handed her the bottle back. "She'd decompose faster if we left her out. I read that on a blog for people who collect animal bones." 

The carelessness that Hennessy said it with stunned Jordan, more than seeing the body had.

"We are not doing that." Jordan hadn't liked Jay much, but the thought of letting animals rip her apart turned her stomach.

"They put them under chicken wire, so they don't get too pulled apart. The bugs do all the work. Once the bones are stripped you can break them up into smaller pieces and not have to deal with ground compression." Her lip was curled cruelly as she looked into the grave. Jordan felt faint.

"If someone is out here looking for ground compression it's already over."

"One week in open air is equivalent to eight underground, I think. Or it's one week in water. There's this thing called gloving, where the skin—"

"I'm going to throw up if you keep talking about that." She wasn't exaggerating. The look Hennessy was wearing as she stared at the body was making her stomach a ruin. It wasn't just jealousy, which Jordan could've understood, could've lived with.

"Your stomach's bacteria would probably help." Hennessy lifted the vodka to her mouth again, eyes still fixed on the body.

The look on her face was satisfaction.

Jordan did throw up then, all over the floral sheet. Hennessy rubbed her back soothingly, which let her know how far gone she truly was. Sober Hennessy would've cackled about Jordan losing her dinner over this, like she was seventeen again. Like it was their first time burying a body together. She crouched down next to her, and once she was finished, Hennessy let Jordan rest her head on her shoulder. They both wore the same perfume, but it smelled sweeter on Hennessy. She smelled like chlorine too. Jordan breathed deeply and held out her fingers for Hennessy to put a cigarette between them. She did.

Jordan looked back to the vacant mansion. There weren't any lights on. No one else knew that Jay was dead, not yet. There wouldn't be mourning for her like there had been for Farha, who had been just as sweet as she was stupid. They felt very alone. 

"Did you kill her?" It was meant to sound flippant, casual. It came out a whisper. Hennessy pulled away from her, and Jordan turned her head to look at Hennessy. Her face was calculating. Her eyes were completely empty.

"If I could kill you lot," she said slowly, "why the fuck would I still be here." She was lying, but she'd still meant the words to stab into Jordan. They did. It would've hurt less if she'd slapped her.

"Every day," Jordan's voice was falsely light. "you amaze me by achieving a level of heinous bitchery previously thought to be impossible." Hennessy showed Jordan all her teeth and flicked her cigarette butt down onto Jay's waterlogged corpse.

"It's bitch all the way down. If being a cunt was an Olympic sport, I'd be a gold medalist."

She stood up and started pulling over a bag of compost. Jordan pulled a knife out of her pocket and cut it open. She shook it out over the corpse, pointedly not looking at the wet curls being covered in dirt. 

When she looked over to Hennessy, she was crouched again, carefully placing three blue and white pills on her tongue. It was time for the stimulant part of her awful little cycle. She was going to fight the black ooze for as long as she could before she gave in and their wretched clock started again. Jordan's anger wilted.

It didn't matter that she still had damp hair curling over her collar. Not when the skin around her eyes was that tight, her shoulders hunched up next to her ears. Jordan was surprised by how easy it was to add murdering one of their own to the list of things she was okay with Hennessy doing. She shouldn't have been, really. She had already come this far with her. Jordan stood up.

Who else would avoid sleep for seven years for her? For all of them?

"Do you want to go to McDonald's after this?"

"Fuck yes." Jordan offered her hand to Hennessy and she pulled herself up. Swaying slightly, she grabbed her shovel and helped Jordan fill in the grave. Jordan pretended not to notice when Hennessy had to keep leaning heavily on the shovel. They stomped down over it, packing the ground with their boots. Jordan took one last pull from the fifth and dumped the last mouthful over the grave.

" _Dasvidaniya_ , bitch."

"Come on, I want a milkshake." Hennessy slung her arm around Jordan in a way that was supposed to be friendly. Jordan didn't think Hennessy could tell how badly her body was shaking. She pretended to not to notice that too.

"Where were you?"

"McDonald's. Jay sends her regards from Hell." Hennessy handed Brooklyn her drink, who turned to look at Jordan, head quirked. She didn't look sad so much as she looked curious.

"What, did she bite it?"

"Drowned. Here's your Filet-O-Fish." Hennessy tossed the bag towards them, and Madox caught it. "Don't worry, mummy's off to get you a new one." She swept off, leaving Jordan in the foyer with Brooklyn and Maddox.

"Did you guys get me a double cheeseburger?"

"It's in there." Madox pulled out Brooklyn's sandwich and handed it to her. Brooklyn took it, but she was still staring intently into Jordan's face.

"Did she kill her?"

"If Hennessy could bring herself to kill us, she probably would've done it already." The words came out smoothly, confidently. Of course they did; they were Hennessy's. And Jordan was very good at being Hennessy. 

**Author's Note:**

> hennessy can have little a murder. as a treat.


End file.
